Brian Etling
is an intern for The Millions. He reads and resides in North Carolina. Brian can be found on Twitter @jbetling, and in the real world behind the counter of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, NC.

In 2013, only 93 of 3,200 children's books were about black characters, according to a new study. "Children of color remain outside the boundaries of imagination," Christopher Myerswrites about the absence. In a follow-up piece, his father and fellow author Walter Dean Myersexamines the paralyzing effect under-representation can have on readers. "Books did not become my enemies. They were more like friends with whom I no longer felt comfortable. I stopped reading," he writes.

It’s famously easy to get scammed on OkCupid. Sarah Hepola (of Salon)knew as much when she joined. But when someone who claimed to be Joseph Gordon-Levitt sent her a flirty message, she figured... what could she do?

Check it out: Creative Nonfiction and Writing Away the Stigma are teaming up to put on a six-part writing workshop and fellowship for individuals who have been affected by mental illness. Twelve writers will have the opportunity to study, free of charge, with the founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine, Lee Gutkind. Submissions are accepted throughout the month of November.

Anjuli Raza KolbreviewsRachel Poliquin’sThe Breathless Zoo, which “tracks the history of whole animal and animal specimen preservation, particularly taxidermy, which refers to the stretching and mounting of the skins of vertebrates, from the seventeenth-century European explorers to the present, with a heavy focus on Victorian practitioners and collectors.” No word on whether or not Poliquin remarks on this curious Danish Facebook group of terrible taxidermy. (Bonus: Caitlin Horrocks’s new story on FiveChapters, “The Lion of Gripsholm – Part Four: IV. The Taxidermist.”)

Watching your book be adapted into a film can be a challenge for an author. At Vulture, John Greendiscusses his involvement in The Fault in Our Stars adaptation, which he has nothing but positive things to say about. "It was a joke on the movie that I cried every day. But I cried every day because they were good every day!" The film's full trailer was released this week, and in case you still haven't read the novel, here's our review.